Hawker Hurricane

Hawker Chief Designer Sydney Camm's Hurricane ranks with the most important aircraft designs in military aviation history. Designed in the late 1930s, when monoplanes were considered unstable and too radical to be successful, the Hurricane was the first British monoplane fighter and the first British fighter to exceed 483 kilometers (300 miles) per hour in level flight. Hurricane pilots fought the Luftwaffe and helped win the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940.

• LF738 was one of a number of aircraft donated to the RAFM by the MoD.
  
• The National Air and Space Museum owns a Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIC bearing RAF serial number LF686. Hawker built this fighter at the Langley factory, near Slough, Buckinghamshire, just six miles from what is now called Heathrow airport, early in 1944. It was part of the last RAF Hurricane order for about 1,300 aircraft. On March 14, 1944, the RAF moved LF686 to No. 5 Maintenance Unit at RAF Kemble airfield for installation of operational equipment. The fighter was delivered to No. 41 Operational Training Unit at RAF Hawarden airfield in Cheshire on April 15, 1944. It served in this OTU until the RAF reclassified the aircraft a maintenance training airframe, number 5270M, on June 27, 1945, and transferred it to RAF Maintenance Command at Chilbolton, Hampshire, where it was used to train mechanics. At some point the original engine was probably removed. In July 1948, the RAF issued the Hurricane to No. 7 School for Recruit Training, RAF Bridgenorth. Another Merlin XX was installed and the fighter was placed outdoors, opposite the guardroom. Sometime later, the entire airplane was painted silver. In 1963, Bridgenorth closed its doors and LF686 moved to RAF Colherne for overhaul and storage. During the late 1960s, the Smithsonian arranged to trade a stock Hawker Typhoon to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon in exchange for Hawker Hurricane LF686. An RAF transport hauled the fighter to the U. S. in 1969. Specialists at the Garber Facility began restoring the airplane in 1989 and finished the project eleven years later. The fighter is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
  
  
• The Hawker Hurricane MkIIa on display at the USAF Museum in Dayton is a Canadian-built airframe painted to represent an aircraft of 71 Squadron, Royal Air Force.